


On the Willows

by Olive_Wednesday



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:34:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olive_Wednesday/pseuds/Olive_Wednesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean remembers his former life. As he struggles to find the people he once loved, he finds that fate is not set in stone and that blessings are curses when they go unshared. Canon verse, reverse reincarnation AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Willows

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm writing a fanfic?!?! And I think it's gonna be multichapter?!?! This is my first snk fic, and the first fic I've written in years. I was over on http://shingekinosve.tumblr.com/ and came across a doujinshi called "Tonight, the Moon is Beautiful", created by this artist: 寥九_亚特求你给夜斗送点钱 (//www.weibo.com/2442642644/A4hMPhIba?mod=weibotime) and translated by tumblr user cecil-koi. It's takes the idea of a reincarnation AU and flips it around so that titan times are the time period in which the reincarnation occurs instead of the original time period. I thought it was the coolest thing, and couldn't stop thinking about it. Somehow, I decided to write a fic about it staring Jean. Somehow I have decided to make it a longfic, though I have never accomplished or even attempted that before. So. This oughta be interesting.
> 
> Idk what the ships in this are gonna be. I have not really planned this fic out, because if I do plan stuff out I get too caught up in my head and never do it, and I kinda just wanna see where this goes. There will defs be some Jean/Marco, maybe some Jean/Armin, maybe some ereri, maybe some eruri, defs some titan trio... yeah. Idk. Just gonna play it by ear. I'll certainly be adding character and ship tags as I go.
> 
> I'm not up to date on the manga, and this will probably diverge from canon at some point, so as long as you've watched the whole anime, you should be good. But who knows. Maybe I'll catch up on the manga while I'm writing this. 
> 
> If you wanna follow me or message me on tumblr, I'm thebatteryparkpost. And now that my note is longer than the chapter, enjoy the story!

Jean remembers his old life.

He remembers waking up to the sound of birds, the sun barely peaking over the horizon. He remembers drinking a strong cup of tea, no milk, one sugar, on his small porch overlooking the lake before heading out to work the fields. He remembers the rest of the village out there with him, toiling the morning away before eating lunch together in the meeting house and then spending the afternoon fishing. He remembers falling into bed each night long after the sun, exhausted.

He remembers being happy.

Whatever village Jean lived in however long ago is now lost far beyond the walls, firmly out of reach in titan territory. The villagers were gone, too. His earliest childhood memory is realizing that his parents were not the same parents from his former life, and the fit that he threw shortly thereafter. In all the years Jean has been alive in his second shot at life, he has never once found his parents or his friends from the far away village, though he's searched everywhere he's been. No one else seems to remember a life from before the walls, from before the titans. He feels the pain of loss in his bones. 

When Jean turns five years old, his parents inform him that they expect him to join the Military Police. Jean's father had served many years as an MP, just as his father had before him, and he desires to see his son carry on the proud family legacy of exemplary service to the king. He wants honor for the family name. Jean's mother just wants him safe.

“You are not, under any circumstances,” she informs him, clutching a plate of birthday cake in her hands, “to join the Scouting Legion. Or the Survey Corps. Or the Scout Regiment. Or whatever they're calling it these days.” She fixes him with a stare that was equal parts fear for her child's well-being and anger at his possible betrayal. “Do you understand?”

Jean nods and quickly says “yes Mama,” partly because he does understand but mostly because he wants his cake. He's never had much interest in military service, really hasn't been alive long enough to seriously consider it, but he trusts his parents, even if he doesn't accept them as his real parents. They know more about this time than he does, and at the very least they love him, and that is enough for him to decide at the tender age of five that he will work hard to become the best and gain the honor of a place in the Military Police.

As he gets older, though, Jean starts to develop his own reasons for joining the Military Police. It is not just about his father's sense of honor and his mother's piece of mind, but about his own desire to pretend. If he joins the Military Police, he'll live deep within the walls, far away from the titans and the ruined earth. If he joins the Scouting Legion or even the Garrison Regiment, he'll be exposed to titans and see the world beyond the walls, and he will no longer be able to pretend his village was still out there, untouched and filled with all his fellow villagers whom he sorely misses. If he stays in the interior, he can delude himself that happiness was still out there. 

Jean would give anything to keep his fantasy.


End file.
